Swiss set to auction ‘Benazir’s jewellery’

Swiss authorities had confiscated ornaments last year during investigations into graft allegations against Zardari

ISLAMABAD:

A valuable jewellery set that supposedly belongs to former president Asif Ali Zardari and other legal heirs of the slain former premier Benazir Bhutto will be auctioned by the Swiss authorities if no one claims its ownership.

Swiss authorities had confiscated the ornaments last year during investigations into graft allegations against Zardari. The set includes a necklace, a bracelet, a pair of earrings and a ring.

François Roger Micheli – a counsel from the Python and Peter legal firm that represented the Pakistani government before the Swiss tribunal that had ruled that the jewellery set belonged to Zardari or the legal heirs of Benazir – has written to the Pakistani government conveying his recent discussions with the Geneva prosecutor, according to whom “if no one claims ownership of the ornaments, then the Swiss authorities would auction them”.

The Geneva prosecutor has provided the Pakistani government with a clear-cut option: publish the names of the legal owners in the official gazette and convey the same to the Swiss authorities.

“Failing to do so would result in the jewellery set being auctioned off and the proceeds would then be shared between the two governments,” the prosecutor told Micheli to convey to the Pakistani government.

The Pakistani government has been in litigation in this case since November 7, 1997, with the claim that the ornaments priced at 117,000 pounds at the time of purchase were part of $13.5 million in commissions given to two Swiss companies SGS SA and Cotecna Inspection SA on September 29, 1994 during the second tenure of Benazir’s government.

The government had claimed that the set was purchased by Benazir from London-based jewellers Chatila for 117,000 pounds.

Another official document of the government states that Benazir Bhutto has disowned the jewellery set, “putting forward that it had been offered to her by her husband as gift, which she refused to accept”.

Zardari had publicly declared through his spokesman that the jewellery set belonged to neither Benazir nor him.

According to his spokesman Farhatullah Babar, the former president has already disowned the jewellery set. “We have nothing to do with further proceedings of the case.”

However, a document belonging to the Pakistani government claims that the former premier herself had bought the jewellery set.

The document states: “While Benazir Bhutto relinquished ownership after the matter became known, it nevertheless remains that it was she who chose and bought the jewellery set, for herself.”

Published in The Express Tribune, March 23^rd, 2015.